Transgenic Cotton and Phosphite May Replace The Need For Herbicides

[progressoid]

In order to promote healthy and vibrant crops, we have to deal with all the stresses and competition this entails for our burgeoning plants. Farmers do their best to help reduce limitations on growth by applying fertilizers, nutrients, water, and overall using mixed soils and crop rotation in order to create the best possible living space. The downside to this system is that it also gives the best possible growing conditions for the wrong kinds of plants. Weeds are one of the most direct banes to any agricultural system, as the undesired seedlings take nutrients away from the plants you want to receive them and create a negative, competitive environment for development and eventual yields.

The best way to deal with this has been to use herbicides of varying types in order to kill off the weeds and leave behind the wanted crops. Originally, spot application and hand weeding was the best one could hope for. But as farmers began growing for people besides themselves and their farms expanded to several acres or more, this became less and less feasible of a practice unless dozens of workers were available to do the work, driving costs up. So, farmers and agronomists sought alternatives.

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A Sought After Alternative

The latest example of this trend comes from Texas A&M University, where its researchers have managed to make a transgenic cultivar of cotton with a unique fertilizer preference. Cotton plants were among the hardest hit by the formation of resistant weeds and yields have been slowly falling. In order to help improve the growth of these crops and combat weeds at the same time, the researchers borrowed a gene from the bacterium Pseudomonas stutzeri.

The gene, named ptxD, is a phosphite dehydrogenase, meaning that it confers the ability to break down phosphite (Phi) into orthophosphate (Pi), removing a hydrogen. When previously tested in rice and tobacco, it appeared to allow them to use phosphite as their sole source of phosphorus, not requiring any other forms from the soil or from fertilizer. As phosphate-reduced soil makes up nearly 2/3rds of all the arable land on the planet, this means that plants can be produced in this soil by adding phosphite. Meanwhile, weed species, as they lack the ability to break down phosphite, would be unable to grow to any meaningful degree in this same soil, dealing with the general problem of resistant weeds without the need for any form of herbicides.

Thus, the researchers transgenically transferred the gene into a cotton cultivar and confirmed its successful usage in that species as well. When tested against aggressive weeds like tall morning glory, purple false brome, and a glyphosate-resistant form of Palmer’s pigweed, the transgenic cotton quite easily outperformed all of them with no complications. So long as phosphite was the only available form of phosphorus, the cotton was able to thrive and leave the weeds in the dust. The capacity is even robust enough that the cotton still outperforms in acidic or alkaline soils or any other number of comparative conditions. The simple fact that the cotton could make and utilize a processable form of phosphorus proved a greater factor in competition with weeds than anything else.

More: http://bioscriptionblog.com/2018/06/07/transgenic-cotton-phosphite-herbicides/

And: http://research.tamu.edu/2018/06/05/one-system-tackles-two-concerns-among-u-s-cotton-producers/

[msongs]

1. replace cotton with industrial hemp. less water, less bug spray, less fertilizer nt

[Squinch]

2. And stronger resulting fiber.

[hunter]

3. Weeds that happily utilize phosphites will soon be along.

That's just the way life works.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. They'll have to compete with huge blooms of P. Stutzerii. :) nt